Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Awards Childhood Obesity Prevention Grant to Nemours Health and Prevention Services

Wilmington, Delaware
Wednesday, September 12, 2007 @ 04:08 PM EDT
by: Karen Bengston

(Newark, DE) — Nemours Health and Prevention Services (NHPS) of Newark, Del., was awarded a five-year grant of nearly $2 million by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) to enhance its ongoing evaluation of policies and practices in schools and child care settings aimed at preventing obesity among Delaware children. The grant will enable NPHS to share its evaluation with other states and to work with experts from across the country to discuss promising practices and opportunities for collaboration on childhood obesity prevention.

"This is a tremendous opportunity for Nemours to contribute to obesity prevention research, share our evidence-based best practices and learn from our peers in other states about what seems to be working well so that we can apply it here in Delaware," said Debbie I. Chang, MPH, Senior Vice President of Nemours and Executive Director of NHPS. "Childhood obesity is a widespread crisis that will take a unified effort to confront and combat. NHPS enjoys strong partnerships with many community organizations, and together we are working to make Delaware’s children the healthiest in the nation."

For the past three years, NHPS has been working closely with Delaware schools and child care facilities (as well as policymakers, primary care providers, and community organizations) to find and develop ways to promote healthy eating and physical activity for children from birth through age 17. Nemours has taken this innovative approach because a growing body of evidence suggests that, by working in all of the places where children spend their time, we can have the greatest impact on childhood obesity. Rigorous evaluation of its programs has been an essential aspect of NHPS since its inception, as has the objective of sharing findings with local and national peers

"We won’t be able to reverse the epidemic of childhood obesity unless we know what works," said Laura Leviton, PhD, senior program officer in research and evaluation at RWJF. "Initiatives that help to identify effective ways to increase physical activity and improve nutrition for kids, like these at NHPS, are essential."

Linda Bultman, PhD, Director of the NHPS Center for Evaluation and Research, underscored the importance of evaluating programs in places outside the home where children spend most of their time. "Research suggests that children are spending increasingly more time in child care, pre-school and school settings," explained Dr. Bultman. "These institutions are recognized as critical settings in which to practice health promotion and obesity prevention."

To better understand cultural and geographical differences in health and behavior, NHPS plans to apply a portion of the funding to expand data collection of its current Delaware Survey of Children’s Health. Specifically, NHPS will oversample by key demographic characteristics in order to analyze the impact of its work in schools and child care centers on certain groups, including the growing Hispanic population in Delaware. "With more culturally and geographically specific data, our findings will carry more weight," said Dr. Bultman, explaining the evaluation’s potential impact on state and even national policies.

Ms. Chang is optimistic about Nemours’ future influence on national policy changes that will increase the ability for children to practice healthy behaviors. She believes such incremental changes will ultimately turn the tide of childhood obesity. "Thanks to the foresight and generosity of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Nemours now has the ability to expand its evaluation efforts to benefit Delaware’s children, as well as share our findings nationally," said Ms. Chang. "In this way, we can maximize our impact on state and national policy and take a very active role in the fight against childhood obesity."

Nemours Health and Prevention Services (NHPS), a nonprofit organization based in Newark, Delaware, works with communities to help children grow up healthy. It is the newest division of Nemours, one of the nation’s largest pediatric health systems, operating the Alfred I. duPont Hospital for Children and outpatient facilities throughout the Delaware Valley and northern and central Florida. NHPS expands Nemours’ reach beyond clinical care to consider the health of the whole child within his or her family and community.

NHPS sees its role as one of catalyst, "planting the seeds for better health" by working with community partners to reach children where they live, learn and play. Its initial areas of emphasis are childhood obesity prevention and child emotional/behavioral health. The goal is to impact long-term changes in policies and practices that promote child health and to leverage community strengths and resources to have the greatest impact on the most children. Online at www.GrowUpHealthy.org.

modified: Monday, October 29, 2007 @ 04:08 PM EDT
created: Monday, October 29, 2007 @ 04:08 PM EDT

About Nemours

Nemours, one of the nation’s largest pediatric health systems, is dedicated to achieving higher standards in children’s health. Nemours offers an integrated spectrum of clinical treatment coupled with research, advocacy, and educational health and prevention services extending to all families in the communities it serves. Starting with Alfred I. duPont’s bequest over seventy years ago, Nemours has grown into a multi-dimensional organization offering personalized clinical and preventive care focused on children.

Nemours owns and operates the Alfred I. duPont Hospital for Children in Wilmington, Delaware and major children’s specialty clinics in Delaware (Wilmington), Florida (Jacksonville, Orlando and Pensacola), Pennsylvania (Philadelphia and Bryn Mawr) and New Jersey (Atlantic City and Voorhees). Having recently received preliminary approval from the State of Florida, Nemours will establish a new full-service children’s hospital as part of an integrated pediatric health campus in Orlando. KidsHealth.org, the world’s most visited pediatric health care Web site for parents, kids and teens, is a project of Nemours.

Nemours employs over 4,400 individuals, including 430 pediatric physicians, specialists and surgeons who cared for approximately a quarter of a million children in 2007. The organization’s goal is to align with parents, physicians, community leaders, children’s advocates and elected officials to ensure optimal wellness for every child. Additional information about Nemours can be found at www.nemours.org.